Lost, never to be found
by Moore12
Summary: A one-shot from Fallen Leaves' POV, from before he meets Jayfeather. Dove's WingXFallen Leaves included. About what Fallen Leaves feels about his situation and hints at info about the Ancient Clans. Much better than it sounds, like Deadfoot's POV. R&R!


_**Lost, never to be found **_

_I am writing this because I want to and because I have had to read Wuthering Heights for my English class and let's just say it's wearing off on me. So, hope you enjoy it! If you liked "As I lay dying..." (the story I wrote about Deadfoot) you should like this. Please R&R! I love hearing what you think, and I never really get any reviews on my one-shots._

_And you those of you waiting on my "Picking on..." series, the next installment will be up SATURDAY! That's right, folks, I'm back! YEA CHRISTMAS BREAK!! _

Did Stone Song and Broken Shadow love me? Were they proud of me? Had I become a sharpclaw, would that have made them proud if they weren't? Do they miss me? Wherever they hunt now, whether it is among the stars I have not seen in years and hardly have any recollection of or still on earth as lost, wayward spirits like myself, do they remember me?

To be lost, never to be found: this is my fate. I wander alone, isolated from my friends and my family, through the tunnels where my life was taken from me. Darkness is as much apart me as my name is now, maybe even more so. What need does a cat have for a name when no cat calls for him, no cat remembers him, and no cat loves him? A name is nothing, worth nothing.

I have been cursed to walk these paths but never escape for so long, I can hardly remember a time when I could see my paws before me. In the inky blackness where I dwell, cats can lose themselves. It is difficult for me to recall the world above my desolate, lonely world, a world that no cat knows of but me. As a kit, maybe this would have been enjoyable, maybe even an adventure. It could have been _my _world, a world of mystery, of boundless adventure, a world where I could escape everything. But now, now it is merely my grave, a grave that spans for miles underneath the world I once called home. It is a grave that I must haunt for an eternity.

I can remember a lake, a lake the color of her eyes. Dove's Wing…Oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to see her one more time! Maybe my soul is trapped on earth because I never said goodbye. If only I had stopped to! But, I was young then and naïve. I _believed _I would survive. I _knew _I would live. And I wanted to impress her. I thought that if I was strong, unafraid, and confident, she would love me even more. She tried to say goodbye, but I didn't let her… I had no idea then that it was goodbye.

Although my memory is very fuzzy, like a day when the gray fog blanketed the lake when I was "alive," I can still remember Dove's Wing. I _know _that if I hadn't failed miserably and became a sharpclaw that we could have had a life together and not a life apart. I _know _she loved me, I could see the love in her eyes, a love I can still sometimes see even now. It comforts me in my isolation. But, alas, I am doomed to walk these tunnels alone, and I do not know where she could be. I doubt she knows of my confinement to the underground. And, even if she did, we still cannot be together, so what does it matter?

As a kit, Broken Shadow told me stories. Stories of the noble cats who "founded" our Clan whose name have been erased from my memory as I've wandered, stories of the "Ancients" I believe they were called, the "Great Clans" maybe. The stories of LeopardClan, TigerClan, LionClan, and…It doesn't matter, I have no one to tell these stories. I can hardly remember Broken Shadow now, and it pains me greatly. She is my mother, and she _loved _me as only a mother can, and yet I cannot remember her. It is not by choice, this too is part of my punishment. To slowly and steadily forget everything that was once important to you is more punishment than being forgotten yourself. Having no memories to fall back on, to comfort you, is so painful. I am terrified of the day I will forget Dove's Wing, but I know I will. It is as unavoidable as turning down another tunnel and finding yet another dead end looming before me, reminding me that there is no escape.

But _why_ am _I _being punished? What did I ever do? I drowned in the tunnels, my ambition for becoming a sharpclaw as quickly as a possible muting my sense of danger. I heard the rain, and yet I allowed the ceremony to commence because I couldn't bear to wait one more moon. I needed to impress Dove's Wing, and I paid for it with my life. But why I am I trapped here? Why am I not in the place my mother spoke of, of the place in the stars she alone believed in? Was that a lie? It sure seems like one right now. Do all cats haunt the place where they died? That cannot be true though, for if it were, I would see other cats. I am not alone in dying down here, alone and terrified, never to see the light of day again. But why are there no others?

I know I'm talking to myself. I know no cat can hear me. No cat has heard my cries for help, my cries of anguish and no cat ever will. I don't matter to any cat. I am doomed to wander my own grave for an eternity, to be reminded of all I have lost but never truly remember. I am lost and cannot find my home, even though, sometimes, I still try to find the surface, to find the air and the trees and the sky and the water that I once knew. I am forgotten, not even a memory, and no cat knows my name. No cat is listening to me, and no cat cares about me.

I am Fallen Leaves. This is my fate.


End file.
